A theme of many of the full-time travel books we’ve read is how to live lean. Whether you call it vagabonding or wandering or full-time travel or intentionally homeless, a key component is shedding a lot of (if not all of) the stuff you accumulate in a more conventional life.
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| Goal: Closets That Look Like This… |
It’s surprisingly challenging. After all, we’re conditioned as Americans to collect stuff: homes, cars, jewelry, shoes (well, at least 1/2 of this middle-aged empty-nest couple with nomadic aspirations has a formidable shoe collection). As much as I love the idea of hitting the road with no particular timeframe for coming back, I can’t bring myself to sell my car. I just love it too much (it’s a 2007 Chrysler Crossfire roadster, if you’re curious). We had on the prep list to “decide whether to sell the Crossfire”, but we decided against it when we learned how low the retail value actually is. Basically, our love for the car far exceeds it’s monetary value, so we’re going to store it for the times we are home and we want to hit the road “topless”.
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| …Should Look Like This! |
Much of the other stuff in our lives has been easy to shed, and even selling the house isn’t off the table: we’re treating this year as the test, and if we like the vagabonding life we’ll come home in December with plans to dramatically downsize. We’re thinking a condo in Florida would be great for seasonal and vacation rentals as well as great home exchange opportunities (condo life in Florida: more reason to keep the Crossfire). A quick look indicates that real estate prices in Florida are still rock-bottom with no immediate threat of jumping up.
Much of the rest of our stuff we can shed by consuming (or giving away) without replacing. Our stock of wine is down to 40 bottles or so (from maybe 90). We have lot’s of clothes to take to Goodwill. My 1000-packet Costco-sized box of Splenda is almost depleted, but I’ll only get a handful to replace it. Giant boxes of Cheerios have been emptied. Frozen foods we’ve had for months are finally getting eaten, and we’re more regularly checking dates on old jars of jelly and mustard–and pitching them.
This is all weirdly satisfying. Why hasn’t anyone ever told us it would be fun and personally rewarding to have less stuff?
